“Whatever is the matter with you now?” he demanded, shaking her roughly. “The dragon will come to feed at any time now, and when he’s ready to eat he isn’t going to stop for a chat, even with me. Nor will he be selective about who he eats. I suggest we finish our business and depart.”
The bear groaned and rolled over.
“You can’t skin him alive and use him for a rug, Great Sorcerer,” begged Xenobia, “He’s the father of my son—”
“What?” Davey actually looked up from the inspection he was making of his fingernails.
“—and his hide has enormous sentimental value to me.”
“Perhaps I shall just concentrate on my conquest of Argonia right now, and forget about Ablemarle altogether until some arrangement can be worked out with the present ruler. I can surely find more reliable allies later.” His back was rigid with contempt as he re-boarded his swan powered vessel. “Come, Hugo, if we hurry I can reach the princess’s palace by morning, in time to compose my acceptance speech. You may all stay here and be eaten, if you so desire.” Hugo didn’t desire, and leapt aboard. Before the others could express further preference, the boat was gliding wakelessly through the tossing sea. Xenobia began to shriek curses after it, and Davey ceased to look bored. If he hadn’t pulled her back, she would have drowned as she tried to wade off into the sea after the boat.
Colin thought he detected streaming green hair and a flashing tail now and then showing above the surface as it followed the wizard’s boat. He screamed to Lorelei, but received no answer.
His Highness yawned cavernously and attempted to sit up. “I say, what’s all this?” he asked. Xenobia hovered possessively above him, casting accusing glances out to the uncaring gray sea.
“We are about to become dragon fodder,” Davey answered.
“Why is young Maggie napping, then?” the bear asked. The situation was explained to him, and since they were all in the same situation and all would be needed if they were to successfully fend off the dragon for any length of time, Davey and Xenobia were prevailed upon to loosen the bonds of the bear and Colin.
Wasting no time, Colin threaded his way through the animal bodies. He tried not to slip and fall on the rock as he climbed the hillock that held Lady Amberwine. She was beautiful, fragile, and not a great deal of help as he tried to untie the knots that held her with her full unconscious weight dragging against them. “I do wish,” he grumbled to himself, “that people would try to remain alert around here. After all, there IS supposed to be a dragon in the vicinity.” He caught Amberwine just above her abdomen as she slipped down the pole when he untied the last knot.
Failing to wake her by chafing her wrist, shaking her, or shouting in her ear, he first tried to carry her in his arms, but she failed to bend sufficiently through the middle and he slipped, while attempting to climb down the hill, when one of his well-manured boots slid out from under him. He sat down abruptly, barely keeping the lady aloft. Finally he managed to haul her onto his back and began wending his way through the animals to where the others waited. He hardly struck the romantic pose he had seen in tapestries, but his novel method of carrying pregnant ladies served quite well to allow him to guide them safely through the meandering livestock.
He had almost reached their companions when he heard it. The beat of the wings sounded like a giant playing a drum, and the sky was overcast from the shadow of the great airborne beast, flame-colored, soaring directly overhead. The wind created by the movement of his wings tore at Colin’s hair and he slid through the ranks of the animals, who were now running in as much room as they had to run in, some of them plunging into the sea. One or two of these the dragon boiled with his flame before he swooped down to pick first a cow and then a pig up into his mighty jaws. Colin forgot about swimming as a means of escape. His hair stood on end as the dragon flew within inches of him, returning to the hillock to eat his prey.
“Get down!” screamed His Highness, rearing on his hind legs. Colin bent over and down as far as he was able without spilling her ladyship over his head. He then plunged, goatlike, across the remaining area until he managed with one final thrust to clear the beasts, nearly tumbling, Amberwine and all, into Xenobia’s lap. His Highness was clawing the air, roaring his challenge to divert the dragon and to give Colin time to rejoin them.
The dragon, having finished the boiled pig, noted the bear with a casual snort of flame. He was apparently surprised at any form of opposition from his meals here, and circled around to pick up a bleating sheep to devour while considering the bear’s novel behavior.
“Sit down, Prince darling,” hissed Xenobia. “Perhaps he’s in the mood for mutton today.”
The bear sat, but it was difficult to sit still with the poor sheep bleating so piteously. Colin almost fainted himself, thinking what might have become of Amberwine had he not gone straight to the rock to release her.
“Maggie does all those little tricks with fire,” suggested His Highness, whose brain was functioning at its best now, in time of peril. “Perhaps if we could wake her, she could put out the dragon’s flame, then we’d only have claws and teeth to deal with.”
They both tried to rouse her, but to no avail, though they shook her and tickled her and called her name. Amberwine started to cry again, holding her sister’s head and shoulders in her arms as she began to rock and keen and mourn like a banshee.
“Here, here,” said Colin severely, “she’s not dead—not yet, anyway. If you’re going to sing, sing waking-up songs, like this.” He began to whistle the spritely Argonian Army Reveille.
Maggie sat up and rubbed her jaw. “I think Uncle’s side of the family must be part mule,” she said.
“Leave off the genealogy for the moment, Maggie, please, and see if you can do something about the flame on yon beastie,” said Colin.
“I can’t do anything ’til he’s closer,” she said, after considering the matter for a moment. “I’ll have to be able to look at the fire to order it around.”
“Splendid,” said Colin grimly.
The bear got to his feet in order to resume his fighting stance once more. Colin tapped Davey on the shoulder. “Hey, you. If you’re going to let your father do all the fighting, give me your dagger.” He held out his hand, but the gypsy man stood up, shaking his head. The sheep had stopped bleating.
Xenobia and Maggie stood as well. Colin was discouraged, but he stood beside them. He didn’t really know what they could do against a dragon except make themselves a little more tender eating by battering themselves fighting him. The creature in the center of their island prison spread his sundown-colored wings and sprang from the rock to circle the little island again.
The bear roared another challenge to the soaring beast. Davey and Xenobia stood with daggers poised beneath the bear’s mighty arms. Maggie crouched before them, as if she planned to physically spring upon the dragon. Oh well, thought Colin, as he picked up a rock. When the dragon flew low enough to singe His Highness’s fur, Colin hurled the rock as hard as he could, straight into the beast’s flaming mouth.
The dragon back-flapped out of Maggie’s range and sat down amid the hysterical animals. Baffled anew by this curious spice his food was tossing into his mouth, he thoughtfully munched a few chickens, which he caught in midair with his long tongue as they flapped frenziedly around him.
“Sorry,” Maggie said, “that blow to my jaw must have slowed my reaction time. Let’s try again, shall we?”
“We haven’t much choice,” Colin said.
Amberwine shuddered, and said in a small, sick voice, “He’s even more horrid than I’d imagined.”
That was the last comment there was time for as the dragon now flew in, preparing to dine on whole roast bear with a side order of gypsies on the rocks. This time Maggie was ready, almost scorching herself as she leapt up crying to the dragon’s fire to stifle itself.
Miraculously, it worked, the torch from the creature’s craw sputtering and dwindling into a sulfurous belch.
Colin embraced her, competing for the privilege with Amberwine and a genuine bear hug from the prince.
It was not over yet, however, for the dragon disliked being deprived of his cooking apparatus, and streaked back toward them, the great translucent orange wings fanning into their nostrils, mouths and lungs a breath that, while no longer fiery, was chokingly, sulfurously foul and fetid. The bear slashed out with his claws, the gypsies with their daggers, and Colin and Maggie both hurled rocks.
This time, however, the dragon was undeterred by the rocks, which bounced harmlessly off his scales. His claws stretched to graze the bear, who missed a swipe with his massive paws and fell to the rock, carrying his two gypsy guardians with him.
Suddenly a whirlwind spun the beast snout to tail to wingtip and Colin, following the funnel, found Maggie’s finger at the source of the vortex. His friend was every inch the powerful, commanding enchantress as she compelled the very elements about her, intoning in her throaty alto, “I wish to make a very large souffle—whip me twelve dozen egg whites—at once—there!” The whirlwind, he could see now, was flecked with the broken and separated eggs of the chickens still squawking on the island as well as those from the fowl recently devoured by the dizzy dragon.
“We’re saved!” cried Amberwine. She’d been looking out to sea, since her gentle nature made it too painful for her to watch her sister get gobbled alive.
“Not yet,” said Colin, “she’s hardly used to this, you know. I don’t know how long she can hold out.” He did not yet see, as Winnie did, the longboat full of warriors rowing swiftly to their aid.
“Will-you-all-just-be-still,” said Maggie from between gritted teeth. After his initial confusion, the dragon had begun to find the whirlwind amusing, and forgot feeding long enough to make repeated dives in and out of it.
“But we are saved, laddie!” cried Prince Worthyman, who by now was waving vigorously at the boat. “Unless I miss my guess, that redheaded chap is set for dragon-slaying, and the young lady is bound to save my neck again. I don’t know who the other chaps are, but they appear to mean business.”
“Look out!” cried Winnie, turning back to her companions just in time to see the dragon swoop again, but she was too late, for the dragon’s tail had caught the bear on the side of the head and knocked him down. “Oh, Rowan, my love!” she cried to the redheaded warrior in the bow of the approaching longboat. “Do hurry, else we’re all slain!”
Not waiting for the longboat to land, with one mighty bound from deck to shore, Rowan leaped among them brandishing sword and shield, which he instantly employed in skilled anti-dragon maneuvers. He protected Amberwine and Maggie and as many of the others as he could with the shield, while wielding the sword in their defense.
By then the boat had landed and beside him stepped Neddy Pinchpurse. Colin recognized the boat they came in as being from the Snake’s Bane. “You get down in the bottom of the boat, lass,” Neddy instructed a flashing-eyed Zorah before he set to work covering Rowan’s back with his cutlass. The second officer from the Bane relieved the redheaded noble of his shield and, keeping Amberwine and the gypsies covered with it, herded them back down to join Zorah in the belly of the longboat.
Maggie refused to leave the island, and while the beast was circling again, Rowan cast an eye upon her, saying, “Go on now, be a good lass. You’ve done your share and I can finish it. We Rowans have made short work of many a dragon.”
She continued to watch the creature do loop-the-loops on the far side of the island. Turning to Colin, she said suddenly, “I have it now, Colin. Where have you heard of a dragon of that particular description before?”
“I—er—” he said, a bit tired for guessing names or repartee.
“That’s right. Grizel. That must be Grimley up there.” Urgently, she turned back to Rowan, who shook her from his sword arm. Still she persisted. “Lord Rowan, you mustn’t slay this dragon.”
“What? Not slay him? After he’s nearly done in the lot of you? It’s rubbish you’re talking to me now, lassie. Terror must have taken your wits.”
He had no other chance to speak for several minutes, as he and Ned Pinchpurse and Colin, with the second officer’s saber, slashed away in the general direction of the dragon. The bear recovered from his fall and defended them with his claws.
“See, he’s tiring,” Maggie insisted of the dragon, as the creature abandoned them for a measly pair of geese. “I think he must be getting full, too. Can’t you just cover our escape?”
“Gurrrl,” said the bear, “Yon dragon is to the community. Would you have him devour us and the townsfolk too? For too long he’s done the wizard’s bidding.”
“If we kill him, we’ll have to kill Grizel eventually, too,” she pleaded. “She’s our friend now, but if we kill Grimley she’ll be a more remorseless enemy than ever he was. She never wanted him to accept this arrangement in the first place.”
“Look out!” yelled Pinchpurse, but it was too late, for this time it was he who was knocked down by the sweep of the dragon’s tail. The beast was apparently enjoying himself now, playing with them, and they slashed ’til their arms were weary. With one last mocking swoop, the dragon picked up Maggie from behind. Rowan lunged to pierce him, but Maggie, in spite of the pain in her shoulders from the claws of the dragon, screamed, “Don’t!”
Colin caught one of her ankles and His Lordship grabbed a knee, then abruptly the beast retracted his claws, and Maggie would have dropped to the rock if her friends hadn’t cushioned her fall.
Amberwine screamed suddenly, piercingly, and Xenobia wailed, “We’re lost!”
“Not quite yet, we’re not,” said Rowan, steeling himself for another onslaught.
“Alas, it’s true!” wailed Davey. “There’s another one!”
The red and gold dragon had been charging them again, but abruptly did another backflap, using his tail as a rudder, and flew off at top speed to meet the blue and green dragon whose wingbeats were now as distinct as their own. Colin cried out, “It’s Grizel!”
Maggie raised her face from the rock and broke out in an ear-to-ear grin. “Thank goodness Grimley’s safe. I hope my shoulders didn’t dull his claws or anything, or we’re in trouble.”
“I just hope she’ll remember us.”
The female dragon paid them no attention, however, and they watched with trepidation and wonder as both dragons alighted on a central hillock of the island. A black and white streak flew from the neck of the aquamarine dragon just as she and the red and gold dragon twined necks, he shyly offering her a cow.
“Ching!” Maggie greeted the cat as he leapt over the backs of the farm animals, now completely prostrate with terror. He sprang onto her chest and she cradled him against her shoulder, stroking his fur, immaculately black and white even after his flight. “How in the world…?”
Even Colin could hear the smugness in the purr, but what the cat told Maggie was, “I really do broadcast very well when I’m sufficiently outraged. When that person tried to murder me and you helped me escape, I ran straight out the side door and over to the most isolated spot I could find and yowled my head off for revenge. Grizel’s quite fond of revenge herself, and just happened to be on her way back to Grimley, so she was only a few leagues off and…”
“A few leagues?” said Maggie, impressed.
The others were regarding the girl and cat’s apparently one-sided conversation strangely. Colin grinned apologetically. “They go on like that all the time,” he said.
“And here we are,” finished Ching.
As they all piled into the longboat, Davey asked, “Will someone please explain to me why with one dragon we are in mortal danger, but with two we’re supposed to be safe?”
21
When the innkeeper’s wife, thrilled almost beyond words to have a great lord like Rowan stopping at her inn, had finished bandaging Maggie’s shoulders and various other amazingly minor wounds, she served them all a fine supper. Maggie pulled out her medicin
e pouch and with a wicked grin at the woman, sprinkled a generous amount of salt into everything.
It wasn’t until they had finished eating that the crew of the Snake’s Bane, led by Boson Pinchpurse, arrived. Ned touched Colin on the shoulder as he took a place on the bench beside him. “Sorry, lad. We tried to give chase in the Bane but he were long gone. Some fisherman said he saw the blackguard trying to dock at his island, but a mermaid was screaming at him and wouldn’t give him a chance to unhitch his swans so he could fly away on them. That’s what the fisherman said, leastways. Too much ale, I’m thinkin’.”
“Believe it or not, Ned, he was probably cold sober,” said Colin, who was not, and was very weary besides.
“Anyway,” said Ned, “this fisherman says the last he seen of the wizard ’e was headin’ out to sea.”
“He did say he was going to see the princess,” Maggie said.
“Yes, ma’am, and he’ll have a bit of a trip in that little boat of his. But them giant swans the lad here told us of will be makin’ their own wind, and it’s too calm for the Bane to make much headway, so we lost him, as I said.”
“No matter,” said Lord Rowan. “Now that we know how to break his spells we can supply everyone, including Princess Pegeen, with liberal amounts of salt. I doubt he’ll stand much chance of being nominated on his personal integrity alone. Especially not after I lodge my complaint with the council.”
“You know,” said Maggie, “I’m not so sure this country and our magic folk are deteriorating at all. Your ancestors Rowan the Rampaging and Rowan the Reckless would never have thought to lodge a complaint with the council over a wizard-induced misunderstanding.”
Rowan laughed. “No, more likely they’d have slaughtered every available wizard and gypsy in the land.” He hugged Amberwine, who sat at his side sipping tea from a pottery cup. “Not to mention the lady.”
“We’re lucky you came when you did,” Colin said.
Song of Sorcery Page 24
